Big Finish Announces Unit: Extinction, Starring Jemma Redgrave

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

You know, we get the feeling that Big Finish is going all out in 2015 to make this their biggest ever year. We’ve already had some intriguing announcements, but this latest one is certainly getting us excited.

Today, Big Finish announced that Kate Stewart and her UNIT team from Doctor Who on TV will be starring in a brand new series of audio dramas, thanks to a licensing deal with BBC Worldwide!

As you’ll probably know, Kate is the daughter of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and the current Head of Scientific Research at the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, which investigates and confronts alien attacks on the planet Earth. You most recently saw Kate in the Doctor Who Series 8 finale, played by Jemma Redgrave (Dracula, Frankie, Cold Blood) and she returns to the role for this audio series.

“We’re thrilled that Jemma is on board for our brand new UNIT adventures,” says series producer David Richardson, “and we feel privileged to work within the universe of New Series Doctor Who for the first time. UNIT: Extinction will showcase all the excitement, drama and wit that viewers of Doctor Who love.”

“Having worked with the greatly missed Nicholas Courtney and his magnificent portrayal of the Brigadier since the early days of Big Finish, it is wonderful to see the return of UNIT under the Brig’s daughter,” says executive producer Jason Haigh-Ellery. “We are all very excited about bringing UNIT back to Big Finish with the next generation and look forward immensely to working with Jemma again, who appears in this month’s Doctor Who main range release Doctor Who – Mistfall [as Decider Lana Merrion].”

“I’m really excited to hear Jemma and her team battling to save the Earth,” says executive producer Nick Briggs. “They’ve been such an important part of the many exciting things to come out of the Doctor Who TV series in recent years.”

More cast members for the first box set, UNIT: Extinction, are set to be released, but what we can share is that this first box set release comprises four hours of adventure, in which Kate and her team confront an alien invasion by the Nestene Consciousness and its army of plastic Autons. UNIT: Extinction will be released in November 2015, and is available as a specially-priced pre-order of £20, with all pre-orders getting a copy of Nicholas Courtney’s memoirs A Soldier in Time as a free download as Supplementary content in Big Finish accounts. A run of four boxsets is planned in total between now and the end of 2017.

What do you think?

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